Knowledge is as far as the click of a mouse

The distance in distance learning has shortened quite a bit since the advent of the digital age.  Years ago, a teacher might pack up her students, permission slips in tow and head off to the museum to expand their horizons.  Today, the museum comes directly into the classroom.




I first learned of Ted Talks through my humanities instructor.  She was fond of using them as a discussion or unit starting device.  Keeping the old adage, "borrow from the best" I plan to follow her lead and use the forum for bringing new ideas into the classroom to procede service learning project planning session.
 
Ted-Ed is an educational forum spun off from the widely popular Ted Talks.  As an educator, I can use parts of previously created lessons or flip the lesson into another grouping of my own making that meets my course objectives.

Let's say the class is focused on discussing issues of social disobedience in relation to peaceful forms of political protest.  As an educator, I may want to include something that is currently being mentioned in the media outlets.  An example that I might assign students to review is the Ted-Ed lesson titled Dare to educate Afghan girls and then follow up with Diane Sawyer's interview with  Malala Yousafzai .  From there the students might dive into their own collaborative group research to come up with a final presentation that defines how they might seek to resolve the issue using peaceful civil disobedience methods.

While this format is very useful for teachers, Ted-Ed and Ted Talks are one of the many community online learning platforms which fit Johnson's definition of an Open Educational Resources (OER).
OER's include readily available course ware, learning tools, communities of learning practice, assessments and objects that engage users to form their own critical inquiry (as cited by Downes, 2011).

With the explosion of user created content available through the internet, knowledge is no longer locked behind four walls.  People from all ages and walks of life can interact with the media and use it to define their own learning objectives.  The guided tools provide an entry to exploration in which the learner chooses their own path of discovery.

The field trips of today can occur anytime day or night no matter the distance.  The learner may be guided by an instructor or a higher purpose.  Knowledge is only as far as the first click of the mouse.

Reference

Downes, S. (2011). Free learning: Essays on open educational resources and copyright. Retrieved from http://www.downes.ca/files/books/FreeLearning.pdf